Welcome to the Purple Rock Podcast’s Ultimate Survivor Tribal Council Bracket, where you will vote on head to head match-ups to answer the question: what is the greatest Tribal Council of all-time?
Last season saw some epic Tribal Councils, including one that inspired a lot of debate in the Survivor fan community on whether or not it was the greatest Tribal Council of all-time. Rather than rush out a hasty ranking (because we were tired at the end of the season, dammit), we decided there was a better way to decide: choose 64 of the best, most interesting, most epic Tribal Councils in the first 31 seasons of the show and let our audience pick the winner. Of course, now that we know how much work it was to put together, we probably just should’ve done that list.
For the next month or so, we’ll have weekly polls pitting Tribal Councils in head-to-head match-ups until we get from 64 down to 1. The Purple Rock Podcast staff have chosen the initial 64, attempting to provide a variety of types of Tribal Councils, from the biggest blindsides to the best executed strategy to the most dramatic or most funny to the tribals that made history. We divided them into four themes to set a bracket template, but how you vote is up to you. We’re not looking for the best representatives of those themes, we’re looking for the ultimate tribal council (whatever that means).
In putting together our list, we had a few qualifications:
- We’re focused on the Tribal Council only. Things that happened before or after the TC can provide context for the action, but it’s what happens at Tribal that matters. So you might see some of the best strategic plays in Survivor history left off because the Tribal they’re associated with didn’t mean much.
- Tribal Council is defined what happened in the episode from when the contestants began tribal council through to the final words of the player voted out. Things that did not make the edit did not count.
- For Final Tribal Council, the vote reveal is not part of the consideration. That happens on a different day and in a different place than the Tribal Council, and even airs on a different episode (The Reunion). So any big moments that spurned from vote reveals weren’t considered. The exception is the first tribal council, where they did reveal the winner on location.
So that explains our list. As for your vote, you decide what matters to you. Just as the show doesn’t tell jurors how to vote, neither will we. Sure, we may try to influence your vote, but you make the call. And by all means, let us know which Tribals you’re championing, and which ones we grievously omitted.
Start Voting Already:
Co-host of the Purple Rock Survivor Podcast and the Canadian of the group, Andy has been watching Survivor continuously since the very beginning and likes to treat that as some kind of virtue to lord over others.
Favourite seasons: Heroes vs Villains, Cagayan, Cook Islands, Palau, Winners at War
Favourite players: Boston Rob, Kim Spradlin, Tony Vlachos, Sandra Diaz-Twine, Yul Kwon, Rob Cesternino
Pronouns: He/him